By the Side of the Road
by ForeverDaydream
Summary: In 1992, Dr. Sofia Sudayeva went on an archaeological dig in the area of Yekaterinburg, Russia. Though she is a professional archaeologist, this particular dig admittedly has a more personal than academic motivation…. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the murders. Cross-posted on brand-new AO3.


"Nana, I found it," Sonya said breathlessly when her grandmother picked up the phone. " _I found it._ " A breathless sob came through on the other end.

It was a lovely late-summer evening at the end of August 1992, and Sofia Sudayeva, PhD, perched at the edge of her hotel bed in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Sonya was in the recently-freed USSR for the first time on an archaeological dig, fulfilling her lifelong dream.

As a child, Sonya's favorite person in the world, besides perhaps her father, was her grandmother, Anya Sudayeva. Nana was a local, and sometimes international, celebrity, as she had been born Anastasia Romanova, the only survivor of the massacre at the House of Special Purpose in July 1918. Nana had suddenly appeared in the international spotlight when _her_ grandmother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, had died and left her as her sole heir in 1933*. No one had ever heard of her before, and for many years she was considered just another Anastasia impostor, albeit the most successful one. Others who perhaps could have inherited some of the dowager empress' fortune were openly hostile to her, and said terrible things about her, accusing her of taking advantage of a lonely old woman for her money, with some outright calling her a thief. The scorn and suspicion her grandmother had faced from Russian aristocrats and certain portions of the general public had always stung the family. It was something her grandmother never completely got over, even though most of the public accepted her claim when Sonya's father, Alexei, was born hemophiliac just like his namesake in 1936. Her grandmother's claim had been completely validated when DNA testing proved she was a Romanov in 1984*. Just the previous year Nana had been proven right again, rather redundantly, when the Romanovs' grave was discovered with two bodies missing* (the stress of her families' bodies finally being unearthed but still not properly buried, and the fear that her brother had survived and that she had never looked for him, had led to a two-month hospitalization). It was fact, now, that the last tsar's youngest daughter had survived-though it was still uncertain quite how-both accepted in general opinion and proven by science. But before that, as a child in the sixties when there were still some doubters, when Sonya had first become interested in archaeology she had dreamed of proving her grandmother's claim by going to Siberia and finding archaeological proof in the place where she had been discovered at the side of the road. It had always been an impossible dream-travel into Russia from the West was difficult for anyone, but outright impossible _and_ extremely dangerous for anyone bearing Romanov blood. It had only become possible after the USSR fell apart in 1990, and even then friends, family, acquaintances, and colleagues had told Sonya that it was _still_ too dangerous.

But Sonya had been determined to do this for her grandmother. Nana had had a rough couple of years-in 1989 her grandfather Dmitry had died, which had completely broken Nana's heart. When her grandfather's coffin had been lowered into the ground, Nana had whispered, "Why is it my fate to outlive everyone I love?" Nana's health had not been great since Grandfather's death, and the ongoing turmoil in the motherland, and the discovery of the Romanovs' grave and Alexei's disappearance, had stressed her further. Now she was ninety-one years old, small and soft and white-haired, and Sonya knew that their time together must be running short. She had wanted, desperately, to fulfill the first promise she had ever made her grandmother in her lifetime.

So she had come to Yekaterinburg at the beginning of July. She had gone on a truly haunting tour of the House of Special Purpose with a local historian and a sheaf of handwritten papers containing her grandmother's scattered memories, and sketches, of her time there. (Those had been donated to the local historical society afterwards.) She had traced her family's last steps, going from the bloody cellar along the country roads to the mine shaft where the bodies were dumped and the grave where her nana's parents and sisters and some of their last, closest friends had been laid, not to rest but to obfuscation. Then she began combing the roads between Yekaterinburg and Pern, searching for the place where her grandmother had fallen or jumped or been thrown off of a truck and been discovered hours later, amnesiac and half-frozen in the snow.

It had taken weeks, and a number of interesting but unrelated finds-it was always surprising what you could find in random patches of dirt-but she had finally found it. A hollow underneath a tree, where under several inches of dirt Sonya had finally found her proof: smears and drops of blood (it seemed her grandmother had dragged herself at least a small distance from the road), three scraps of fabric, a broken earring, two sapphires, and…

"It was there, Nana," Sonya murmured breathlessly into the phone. "Just like you said it would be. The necklace your grandmother gave you." A golden locket, clasp split in half, hinges slightly broken so that the two halves hung slightly open, the glass inside smashed. On the outside, it was decorated with a flower formed of green gemstones, all of which were miraculously still in place. On the inside, one side was engraved with the phrase _Ensemble à Paris_. Together in Paris. The photo that had been carefully pasted in the other side was long since rotted away.

The locket, Nana had said, had been sent in the mail by her nana as a gift for her tenth birthday, made to match their music box. The photo inside had been one taken of the two of them taken two days before Nana's nana had given a small child a music box and left for Paris. Nana had worn it constantly for the next seven years, especially after the Revolution, including on the night of July 17th. A necklace was a good deal more portable than a music box, after all. When she had woken up in the hospital, she had had a nervous habit of reaching for something at her neck, something to fiddle with, though of course by the time she knew what exactly it was she had been looking for the necklace was ten years and several countries away. It was a miracle that it had not been noticed by whoever it was who had found her, that it had already been covered by snow and perhaps Nana's hair-of course, Nana was a creature of miracles. It was a series of miracles, not just that she had survived that first night or those hours in the cold, but that her identity had not been discovered immediately afterward, or revealed by those (the nurses, at the bare minimum) who most certainly must have guessed.

"I found it, Nana," Sonya repeated. "And a few other things. I'll bring them back with me. I'll come home soon. I'll see you…"

" _Ensemble à Paris_ ," came through from the other end. Together in Paris at last.

Notes:

*In real life, the last Dowager Empress died in 1928, but that's the year the show takes place, so I moved it back a bit. This way, not only was the empress alive for the events of the show, she also got to see two of her grandchildren born! In this fic, Anya and Dmitry had four children-Maria Feodorovna in 1930, Nicholas Nicholas (because both of their fathers were named Nicholas, actually) in 1932, Alexei Vlad in 1936, and lastly Lily Dagmar (tribute to the Dowager Empress again!) in 1938. I feel like JK Rowling, naming all the kids after important people in Anya and Dmitry's lives, but it's a historically accurate tradition and I read a Glenya fic (by Blue3ski, I think), where Anya had a son named Alexei and I thought that was adorable and I wanted to contribute to the tradition. Anyways, those names are _definitely_ better than Albus Severus (though James Sirius and Lily Luna are completely on point). Albus Severus _sounds_ cool, but that's just not a fair or appropriate name to give Harry's son, even if he does make an effort to forgive them. Arthur Rubeus would have been better, or Rubeus Remus. What would the Anastasia equivalent of Albus Severus be? Grigory Gleb? Anything Lenin would be a bit too far, I think. Different fandom tangent over.

**1984 was the year the DNA of Anna Anderson, the most famous Anastasia impostor (and arguably the inspiration for stories like _Anastasia_ ), was posthumously tested, very much against her consent (she had had herself cremated precisely so this couldn't be done, but several years earlier she had had part of her intestine removed that was used to get a sample from). It showed that Anderson was not related to the Romanovs. (Side note: Anna Anderson is a really interesting, and really sad, story. She was a patient at a mental health sanatorium after having tried to commit suicide. Someone who knew or was connected to the Romanovs happened to meet her there and declared that she was the Grand Duchess Tatiana. Someone else came along to investigate and said no, she couldn't _possibly_ be Tatiana, she must be Anastasia, and eventually Anderson came to believe it. The really crazy thing is that she had a way of knowing things she shouldn't, things that she had no way of knowing, things that, theoretically, only the real Anastasia would know, which is why she convinced so many people she was the real deal. There's this one story I remember reading about, of a cousin or something who was very much convinced that she was an impostor, but as soon as they met Anderson said, "Oh, you're the one with the funny animal pictures." That cousin had used to draw amusing little sketches for Anastasia, and at this trivial and obscure bit of information they were convinced. At some point I want to write a story about Anderson being a psychic, and that being how she knew those things that were too small to go into the history books. I actually have something sort of similar in the works.)

***If I recall correctly, the grave of the Romanovs was unofficially discovered in the 1980s, but this could not be made public until after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Yes, two bodies really were missing-Alexei's and one of his sister's, either Maria's or Anastasia's. Those bodies were found in 2007, finally putting an end to the rumors of Anastasia's survival (although obviously that would not happen in this universe). I think I read that the Americans are pretty sure that the body buried with Alexei is Anastasia's, but the Russians insist that it's Maria's. Those two bodies are still not buried properly, I don't think. Those two bodies were separated from the rest because the Bolsheviks wanted to make sure Alexei, the potential heir, would not be discovered if the others' bodies were found by the White Army. They also wanted to bury the Empress, as a figure who attracted special animosity, separately, but supposedly they'd mutilated the women's bodies so terribly that they could not tell them apart.

Also side note on the surname Sudayev/a: the character of Dmitry in the 1997 movie, where he worked as a kitchen boy in the palace and helped Anastasia and the dowager empress escape, is based on a real-life servant of the Romanovs named Dmitry Sudayev. He was orphaned at a young age, began working for the Romanovs as a child, was friends with Anastasia, and when he fled the palace after the Revolution actually tried to take Anastasia with him. Yeah, I was really excited to find that out too, though the last part is usually told along these lines: "he cowardishly abandoned her stuck in a window to be discovered by the guards!" He died during World War II.

Wow, these notes are almost as long as the fic, which honestly is more of a headcanon/alternate history than a fic. But I wanted to get it out now, so whatever. This fic is in honor of the hundredth anniversary of the Romanovs' murders, and in particular in honor of Anastasia and Alexei. I hope they can finally be buried with their family and rest in peace soon. I would post this on the day of, but I can't because I will be super busy tomorrow because I am seeing Anastasia on BROADWAY tomorrow evening! I hope they'll say a few words for the anniversary. I was really disappointed to find out that Derek Klena has moved on, but Christy Altomare is still there!


End file.
